"In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the [compulsive overeating] problem in all its ramifications." - Alcoholics Anonymous, page xxi (last paragraph of the forward to the second edition).

Although originally written about alcoholics, this statement is so much truer for compulsive overeaters.  I look at the people around me and I see so many who belong in program.  I've heard it said that everyone belongs in at least one program - the question is finding their drug of choice.  It takes only five minutes on any webpage to see the obsession people have with dieting and their weight.  So much money and energy goes into eating disorders and their ramifications.  There is so much suffering. 

When I think about how many cities have next to no OA presence, I am horrified.  The other week my usually packed Thursday night meeting was next to deserted.  One person shared that she was horrified to see that there were so many empty seats.  Just a casual stroll through a store suggests that there should be people pounding down the doors to get recovery.  Yet this program is only touching a small fraction of us.

I can only stop and pause and be insanely grateful that I was chosen to be in these rooms.  Really, I can only see the hand of God in moving me into OA.  I never would have found my way here on my own.  It took quite a few nudges to get me into the room and quite a few more nudges to get me to stay.  The life that recovery has given me is so much richer than I ever imagined it could be.  My feelings are deeper, my connection with my son is deeper, and my awareness of how my actions affect others is deeper. 

But for the grace of God, I'd still be quietly eating myself to an early, lonely, unfulfilled death.  When I see an obese person walk down the street I'm filled with a simultaneous sense of sadness (I once was told that every pound of fat is really a pound of pain) and relief that I get to be one of those people that doesn't have to let the pain rule my life and determine my future.

Love Yourself

No matter what, love yourself.

Love yourself, even if it feels like the world around you is irked with you, even if it feels like those you've counted on most have gone away, even if you wonder if God has abandoned you.

When it feels like the journey has stopped, the magic is gone, and you've been left sitting on the curb, love yourself.  When you're confused and angry about how things are going or how they've gone, love yourself.  No matter what happens or where you are, love yourself.  no matter if you aren't certain where you're going or if there's anyplace left to go, love yourself.

This situation will change, this time will pass, and the magic will return.  So will joy and faith.  You will feel connected again - to yourself, God, the universe, and life.  But the first thing to do is love yourself.  And all the good you want will follow.

- From Journey to the Heart, by Melody Beattie.

So beautiful I had to share.

Writing Multiple Fourth Steps

I recently added In This Moment Daily Meditation Book put out by Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) to my list of daily readings.

The May 5th entry talks about making a "searching and fearless moral inventory."  Part of the entry goes on to say "The hardest part of doing my inventory is breaking through denial.  I can't inventory something I don't know exists.  Once I'm aware of a behavior, I'm usually willing to write it down, share it, and ask that my defect be removed.  Getting there takes time and that's OK with me today."

One of the things that has been bothering me lately is that I managed to go through a full Fourth Step without spotting my love addiction.  When it came time for me to do my Fourth Step, my sponsor "followed the book."  There was an actual spreadsheet I was given to fill out.  It had tabs for resentment, fear and sex.  Each tab had columns to fill out (although to be fair the sex tab had a list of questions I had to answer about each of my sexual relationships):  "I have a resentment towards/of (bb pg 64)"  "because or why (bb pg 64)" "my instinct for (...) has been/was affected (12/12 pg 42)" and so on.  It took me over three months to fill in the entire thing, and my printed Fourth Step came out to somewhere around 90 pages (although to be fair it printed in fairly large font).

And yet somehow I didn't see a glaringly obvious defect: and what's more my sponsor didn't see it either.  (At least if she did, she didn't tell me!)  It would only seem natural that addictive patterns would show themselves in these types of inventories.  The fact that it remained hidden was a mystery.

This baffled me, but reading this reading shed some important light on this for me.  I'd always thought it silly that I'd need to do Fourth Steps in multiple programs.  The "fearless and searching moral inventory" wasn't going to wear different hats.  But now that I have a new addiction - and a new defect - I have something to write down, share, and ask to have removed.  I need a new Fourth Step because I couldn't inventory something I didn't know existed.

Newcomers. . .

The May 4th Voices of Recovery quotes The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous:  "All who have experienced the pain of compulsive eating and want to stop are equally welcome here."  It goes on to tell the story of a woman who came to the meetings fighting the program.  "I had no desire to refrain from compulsively eating.  Instead, I wanted to diet.  I did not take the suggestions seriously.  Tradition Three illustrates the reason for my inability to grasp this program.  I wanted the weight loss and even the pleasure of it without having to earn it first.  Today when I watch newcomers struggle with the program as I did, I try to show the same compassion and acceptance as those before me."

I remember my first day in Overeaters Anonymous.  I came into the rooms believing that I didn't need the program - I was fine.  When the woman who shared told my own story, I was shocked.  But I decided to sign up.  She'd lost all her weight so clearly whatever these people were selling worked.  I asked her to sponsor me at break and felt I had put a check in the box to have them wave the magic wand that would fix me.

She told me to read from the Big Book, and I read Bill's Story and put the book down again.  Not only did I not relate to the story, but I figured that all the Big Book contained was a collection of people's stories.  Why would I bother reading about a bunch of alcoholics when I could sit in a meeting and hear people tell me about their own stories of recovery - and on topic, too!.  I was already sold on the program, just get to the good stuff!

That sponsor told me to write down three things I loved about myself every day. I thought it was the dumbest assignment in the world.  And yet when I sat down that night I couldn't think of a single thing.  Everything I loved had a "yeah, but. . ." attached to it that was a disqualifying factor.  I eventually found myself on the phone with another woman I'd met in meeting, sobbing because I couldn't find anything to love about myself.

Eventually I was able to identify a few items - I have a set of freckles on my leg that looks like a happy face; I always have a flower painted on my big-toenails; and I have three freckles on my foot that make a straight line.  Each night I came up with three new things - sometimes it was that I loved a dish I cooked, other times it was that I loved knowing how to knit.  But each time I failed to understand what the point of this exercise was.

Every time I asked that sponsor why we were bothering with this (get on with the wand waving, already!) she told me we were working on my first step.  She asked me to identify trigger foods, so I started cutting out things like soda and coffee.  Eventually my "abstinence" was to not eat French fries, doughnuts, or drink coffee and soda.  Yet I still binged on sweets and snack foods to my heart's content.  So after three months I decided I was wasting my time and left program.

When I came back I decided I could do it on my own.  For the first two months back in the rooms I was back to my original "abstinence" - still binging away - and I decided that I could identify my own trigger foods.  Since my first sponsor didn't "do anything" for me, I'd sponsor myself!

But through this all, I was just as clueless as that woman was.  I wanted the results without the work.  I didn't want to surrender to another person.  I didn't want to work the steps.  I didn't want to change my life.  I just wanted the magical fix.

But there is no magical fix.  There is a miraculous one - but that requires work to attain. 

It wasn't until after I'd gotten another sponsor, surrendered, and gone through my first step that I learned what my first sponsor was doing:  she was trying to show me that my life was unmanageable.  She was waiting for me to notice just how hard it was for me to find things I loved about myself, and she was waiting for the light bulb to click that maybe, just maybe, whatever it was I was doing to run my life wasn't working.  But because I never left the disease, I never was able to see what she was trying to show me.

Today's reading was a good reminder of just how much I struggled as a newcomer, and just how much I need to show compassion to those still suffering from compulsive overeating.

Finding a Higher Power Part 2

Once I was able to get past the initial fact that I not only needed a higher power, but I needed to surrender to it, I did the first thing I could think of:  I went to church.

I was raised Catholic but stopped going to church when I went to college.  This happened to coincide with a big wave of scandals and a huge payment of damages to the victims of sexual abuse by priests.  But what rocked my faith the most was the fact that the priest of the mass I regularly attended was one of the people on the news for molesting small boys.  This is the man I received communion from; the man I gave confessions to.

It started out first that my faith in the Church was shaken, and then my faith in Christianity as I began to learn more of the history of the Church and the bible.  I'd always had difficulty relating to Jesus.  Not that I didn't respect his teachings, but I'd just never been able to reach a point of believing in him as my "Lord and Savior." 

So now, here I was more than a decade later trying to get back to a point of faith.  I sat in mass and found myself fighting not to roll my eyes.  I felt out of place and uncomfortable there.  I tried staying late to sit in silence in the church and pray, but I still felt like an interloper.  I didn't give up immediately.  I kept going to mass, sometimes taking my young son with me.  But the feeling that I was a fraud kept plaguing me.

So I went to my sponsor and asked for help.  She told me that if I didn't like the Catholic God, then I should just make my own Higher Power. 

In a meeting, I once heard a man share how he found his own Higher Power.  His sponsor told him to take a piece of notebook paper and fold it in half length-wise (i.e. like a hot dog).  One one side, he was to write all the things he hated about organized religion and the religious beliefs of others.  On the other side he was to write down all the good things, and the things he'd want in his own higher power.  Once this was completed, his sponsor told him to rip the sheet in half down that dividing line.  Here were the applicants for the job of his Higher Power. Now he could throw out the ass-hole he didn't like and hire the one he did.

So I started my research.  I looked into theologians like former Dominican priest Matthew Fox, Judaism, eastern religions, I even spent a good deal of time looking into paganism.  In fact, one of the most helpful books I read was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religion by River and Joyce Higginbotham.  That book described various faith systems, ways people look at religion, and even talks about scientific findings that could support the basis of an earth-based faith.  But most importantly it taught me ways to meditate and pray that were deeply meaningful to me.

It was almost a four month process of research, meditation, and reflection that led me to the point where I now had a Higher Power with capital letters.  I was able to look back on the way that program had changed my life, and how I had changed as a result of program.  These were things I had never been able to achieve on my own.  Finally I knew I had found the belief that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.  I had at last taken the second step.

Finding a Higher Power, Part 1

When I came into program I didn't have a higher power let alone a Higher Power with capital letters.  It isn't to say I didn't believe in God.  Being an atheist involves a certain measure of faith.  While it is impossible to concretely prove the existence of a Higher Power, it is also impossible to concretely disprove the existence of some Higher Power.  So the act of being an atheist is as much an act of faith as the belief that Christ is the Son of God or that Buddha obtained enlightenment.  And faith was something I was fresh out of.  So I was indifferent to the notion that there was a deity out there, but one thing I was most certain of was that any deity that might exist most certainly wasn't interested in me.

So I needed some sort of starting point.  I have met people who have chosen non-deity Higher Powers, such as mathematics (no matter how much you dislike the outcome, 2+2 does not equal 5), the laws of physics (gravity is a cruel taskmaster. . .),  mother nature (not much you can do if good ol' mother nature decides to drop a tornado on your head at lunch time), the door knob (this seems to be the classic example I hear in meetings, so for a few months I told the door knob on a regular basis what a shit job it was doing running the universe), the ceiling ("I am powerless over whether that ceiling decides to collapse and crush me"), their sponsor (if you have made them your "boss" then you have placed them as a "Higher Power" over you - although this one is a sticky one long term), the people in the OA rooms (this was the route I went with once I stopped thinking that the requirement for a higher power was stupid),  a celebrity (I've heard people go with Chuck Norris' beard, Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds' moustache, and other such silliness - but guess what: it worked for them), time (you can't stop it and you can't control it), and the universe (we can all agree that the universe exists).

I have heard two things in meetings that have stuck with me.  One person who struggled with active atheism was told by his sponsor, "Can you believe that I believe in a Higher Power?"  That was a starting point. 

The other thing I heard was:  "All I need to know about God is that I'm not Him."

In my experience with program there are two stages of the Higher Power proposition.  The first is accepting that you are not calling the shots for the universe.  There is some force outside of your control deciding that Joe down the street is going to have a heart attack next week, or that there is going to be an earthquake next month, or that you're going to suddenly have the worst food poisoning of your life the day you have a big interview.

The second part of the proposition is learning to trust that somehow things are going to work out for the best.  All you need to do is do the footwork (i.e. if you want a promotion then work hard and show up on time, if you want a college degree then enroll and go to your classes, if you don't want food poisoning then don't eat the leftovers growing mold in your fridge, etc.) and let The Great Whatever do the rest. 

This second proposition is much harder to reach.  It involves not only the understanding that you aren't in control of the world, but surrendering to whatever is. And us addicts hate surrendering anything.  It is the difference between deciding to sky dive and actually jumping out of the plane.  In my experience you can't force this part - it just comes with time.

But for today, you don't need to be at that second part of the proposition.  All you need to do today is reach the point where you know that "I'm not Him/Her."  And that isn't a hard point to reach.  On an intellectual level, most of us know that we didn't create the universe.  (Those that don't know this have much bigger troubles than compulsive overeating.)

But the most important thing about finding a Higher Power is understanding that it really doesn't matter if that Higher Power actually exists.  What matters is that you act as if you believe one does.  My sponsor once shared in a meeting that she didn't know if there really was a Higher Power out there.  But even if there was nothing - well, nothing was sure doing a better job running her life than she did.

Meditation: Growth

This last week has been a difficult one.  My boyfriend broke up with me.  My ex-husband took my son to see his family in Texas for Easter.  But most importantly, after looking at the relationship patterns I've gravitated towards, I realized that I use love as a drug - and I'm referring to that Hallmark, Valentine's Day kind of love, not the truly deep and intimate kind of love.  When things get bad, I move from one relationship into another - keeping a casual distance, putting the new person on a pedestal, and waiting for things to collapse before starting the process immediately over again. 

This is just one more outlet for my disease to keep me from coping with life, and so I have a cross addiction that I am now dealing with.  Which means I spent this week managing an empty house and a breakup without food, without alcohol, and without the lure of seeking out a new romantic partner.

Being without my son is always tough, but on Easter it was particularly difficult.  So last night I decided that it was time to do a guided meditation.  When working on my Second Step, I learned a number of guided meditations designed to help me grow closer to my Higher Power. 

My favorite of these meditations is one that involves going into your "inner temple."  The process is simple.  Lie down and get comfortable.  Picture that there is a light (pick a relaxing color, mine is a teal color but yours can be anything you like) that is moving from your feet and filling your body as it goes up to your head.  Once you are in a safe little cocoon of relaxation, let yourself drift up and out of your body.  You are going up and up to the clouds.  Ahead you see a big fluffy white cloud and your cocoon stops there and you step out onto that cloud.  Ahead of you is your temple.

The meditation goes on to tell you to approach the temple and go inside.  You let your mind wander and just watch what you do in there - it's like semi-active dreaming. 

It's up to you to picture what your temple looks like.  My temple used to always be a Greek ruin with a few tendrils of ivy going up the side.  The inside had broken floors - it looked like a place that had not seen a human being in centuries (if not longer).  There was a lone stone altar in the center, but nothing else.  I have always loved my meditation trips to my temple because I thought it was beautiful and special. (A bit of foreshadowing . . .)

I couldn't seem to get into my teal cocoon this time.  Instead I felt like I was being sucked into a black hole.  I was trapped inside this little popcorn kernel shaped shell, curled into fetal position - and it was like this that I went up to my clouds.  I thought about stopping the meditation and starting over, but figured I'd go with it.

This time when I went into my temple, it was like a lush botanical garden.  The structure was the same - the same pillars and vines, but this time the whole place was surrounded by lush plants and hanging vines of flowers. The floors were old and worn, still ancient, but they had that well-kept look that you see in old cathedrals in Europe.  My stone altar was still in the center, but it had a pristine white table cloth on it, with candles and flowers.  On one side of the altar there now was a throne where I knew my Higher Power sat.  Instead of a place of decay, everything was pristine - as though it was millennia old, but had been loved every single day of its long, long life.

Looking around my temple, I realized that the changes I was seeing were a reflection of my growth in program.  I am no longer a barren, broken down human being.  My temple before was very pretty, but this place was beautiful beyond compare.  I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was given this chance to see the changes in myself.  After how rough this week has been, I'd been feeling like I had made no progress whatsoever - and yet here was the proof to the contrary.

I looked around and didn't see my Higher Power anywhere, but somehow I knew he wasn't far.  I looked down and in my hand there was the little kernel with me inside, and I realized it was a seed.  Down at the base of the throne there was a missing stone with a plot of really rich smelling soil.  I'm not much of a gardener (as my poor half-dead vegetable garden can attest) but if I were a plant, that is the kind of soil I'd want to live in!  So that's exactly what I did.  I knelt down and planted the seed that was me, and stepped back.  I knew that I had planted my seed in a safe place and that my Higher Power was there to watch me grow.  I didn't have to worry about water or sunshine - my Higher Power had that part.

I knelt down next to the plot of dirt and told my seed-self, "I know it hurts now, and I know growing is a struggle.  But keep fighting, because it will all be worth it once you break the surface and see the sunshine."  I was picturing my seed-self pushing against the walls of the seed, breaking out and struggling against the dirt to push up and to the sunshine. I realized that the feelings I'm having now are just that - I'm pushing through the dirt trying to reach the sunshine.

I came to after that and felt this sense of peace.  I know days are going to be difficult, but just for today I can have faith that the sunshine is going to be worth it.

I don't know if these meditations are just my subconscious giving me the information I need or a way for my Higher Power to reach  me, but either way: message gratefully received.

Donor Organ

We are like recipients of a donor organ.  Ours was defective so we needed a new one.  The only catch is that we need to constantly be taking medicine to keep our bodies from rejecting our new organ.  In fact, we have nine medicines we need to take: 1) a plan of eating, 2) sponsorship, 3) meetings, 4) telephone, 5) writing, 6) literature, 7) action plan, 8) anonymity, 9) service.

Do You Know Who You Are?

I watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy that posed three questions.  The patient was a man who had been paralyzed from neck down in an accident.  The doctor was asking if he wished to be taken off of life support as he would never be able to live without machines to breathe for him.  To confirm that he wished to be taken off of the machines he was asked three questions:

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what's happened to you?

Do you want to live this way?

It shocked me just how appropriate these questions were for a compulsive overeater.  Really, for any addict.  Before program the answer to all those questions was a resounding no. 

I didn't know who I was.  Indeed, I spent nearly every waking moment trying to avoid figuring that out.  I ate, I drank, I played excessive video games, I read, I did anything and everything to not think about who I was.  

I didn't know what had happened to me.  I woke up one day and I was 305 pounds.  Sure I saw myself getting larger and larger, but somehow it still snuck up on me.  I kept expecting that tomorrow would be different - tomorrow I'd find the will to change.  Tomorrow I'd eat healthy and exercise.  I'd suddenly know how to act and be like other people.  But tomorrow never came.  So I got a gastric bypass.  I lost the weight but it came right back on.  And again tomorrow never came.

The only thing I knew before program was that I didn't want to live this way.  I couldn't live this way.  I was hopeless.  I was desperate.  I was completely unwilling to surrender my life and will to the care of a power greater than myself.  It took the complete and total annihilation of my willingness to live before I was able to put down the reigns and hand over control. 

That day I waved the white flag and got a sponsor.  That's when the miracle happened.  How different today is.  I went from 305 pounds down to the 169 pounds I weighed today (and I'm still losing).  I went from a size 24 to a size 10.  A size XXXL to a size M.  I went from constantly depressed and angry to a genuinely happy, optimistic person.  My life has never been better.

I now can confidently answer all three of those questions with a yes.  I discovered that the answer was surrender.  Sweet, simple surrender.

A Metaphor

Today I wanted to make a long outreach call, but having a very high energy toddler on my hands I knew that was unlikely to happen.  So in a moment of mad inspiration, I did what any mother would do.  I taught him how to drive.

In reality, he was sitting on my lap while I allowed the car to roll forward at a staggering 4 miles per hour.  He steered and I gently reached in to correct the wheel when he looked likely to hit a curb as we rolled our way around our cul-de-sac.  A few neighbors paused to call some greetings to us, and the bright smile on my son's face was infectious.

Every once in a while he didn't want to let me correct his steering and swatted my hands away.  When that happened, I applied the breaks and told him he wasn't going anywhere until he let me help.  He pouted but eventually realized that he needed my cooperation if he wanted to keep driving. 

I realized with surprise just how much this is like my own interactions with my Higher Power.  When I allow Him to gently guide me, He lets me steer and keeps things moving forward.  But when I refuse help, He puts on the brakes and lets me sit in frustrated misery until I'm willing to surrender.

Full of Feelings - And Right-Sizing Them

I've had a bit of an emotional week.  After much prayer and meditation, I realized that I needed to have a frank discussion with my boyfriend about what being with an addict entails.  I talked to him about the possibility of relapse, and what that could look like. 

Being a compulsive overeater, my relapse looks very different from that of the alcoholic or the drug addict.  I am killing myself every bit as much as those addicts when I am in my disease.  The difference is that I'm doing so in a quiet way that one simply doesn't talk about.  Sure the concerned family member might note I had gained weight, or someone might ask if I was still going to meetings.  But ultimately it isn't the kind of addiction that you can get court-ordered to do something about.

I asked my boyfriend if he was willing to stay knowing that relapse would always be a risk.  He knows I work a strong program.  He knows I am putting program first.  He knows that I intend to do everything in my power to stay in the rooms, because that's where life is.  But after having a slip, I knew that the only way I could continue with him was knowing that he wouldn't suddenly be blind-sided if I relapsed after we were married with children. 

He took my question very seriously, and has been thinking about it all week.  It isn't so much the prospect of me being obese that concerns him (while he wouldn't enjoy that aspect of relapse).  What concerns him is that he will be watching me kill myself and be unable to do anything to stop it.  In fact, if he tries to interfere, he may be hindering my recovery.  That is the aspect that has him concerned.  In his mind, that is a lot of responsibility and potential conflict.  So he has not ended things, but he is taking time to truly think things over.

I appreciate that he is taking this seriously, because it is something that I take seriously.  But being left in suspense is an uncomfortable and frightening place.  I took the action that I felt was in the best interest of my program.  Food had gotten loud and I realized it was my anxiety over how my relationship might interfere with my program.  So I did what was necessary to resolve that anxiety.  In the process I created a different anxiety. 

Today I was feeling that perhaps it would be better to simply end the relationship.  It would give me certainty and end that fear and that powerlessness that I'm so uncomfortable with.  I would choose loneliness and isolation instead - those are feelings that I'm far more at home with. 

Then I learned that my friend lost his battle with cancer, leaving his wife and their four children behind.  Boy didn't that put my life into perspective.  I'm in a huff because my boyfriend is taking time to consider whether he wants to take our relationship to a more serious level.  Yet my friend's wife is mourning the loss of the love of her life.  I will see my boyfriend on Friday.  She will never see her husband again. 

It was a very humbling and I felt ashamed to realize how ungrateful I was for the blessings in my life.  I have a relationship that for today is very wonderful and beautiful, and I was willing to throw it away because of fear.  I might lose him later so I'll throw him away today. . . when there are countless widows who would do anything to get just one more day with their loved ones.  It is entirely possible that my boyfriend will tell me he wants to part ways when I see him this Friday.  If that happens, I will wish him the best and thank my Higher Power for the time I had with him.  But to throw away the possibility of a future with him simply because I was uncomfortable with the uncertainty is ridiculous.

So for a while I stopped thinking about my problems.  I started thinking about those things I was grateful for.  I spent time getting my emotions shrunk down to the right sizes for the situation. 

Then I spent time mourning my friend, because he deserved to be mourned.  I sat down alone on my sofa and I held a small conversation with him.  I thanked him for the things he brought to my life, apologized for anything I could think of that might warrant an amends (and then a few things that probably didn't).  I sat with a Kleenex box and said my good bye.  Then I moved on to work on my program.  I feel very keenly the void my friend will leave in my life, but I know that I must accept the things I cannot change. Sadly, death is one of those.

Life Without Disease-Ridden Thinking

Today's For Today Workbook posed the question "What would my life be like if I let my Higher Power free me completely from compulsive eating and disease-ridden thinking?"

I laughed when I read this, because I had just spent the previous hour writing a long email to my boyfriend explaining my thoughts and reactions to a long conversation we had discussing our relationship, where it was going, and what his concerns were going forward.  Among those concerns was the idea that I have a lot of chaos in my life.

I wanted to laugh in his face and tell him what my life was like before program.  If he wanted to see real chaos he should have met me then.  But this prompt came up in my workbook and I smiled.  Because it is precisely that disease-ridden thinking that means I have to put those thoughts into an email rather than tell him.  I get too distracted in person and go off topic.  But in an email I can organize my thoughts and prevent the rambling.

But the thing that struck me the most about this was just how much of the mental acrobatics I could avoid if I let go of my diseased thinking.  My thoughts wouldn't be turned on whether I was good enough or what someone else thinks of me.  I wouldn't need to stop myself to give the gentle reminder that other people's opinion of me is none of my business.  I wouldn't need to stop myself from going down a spiral of diseased thoughts when life throws me an unexpected curve ball.

I think that the best answer is to pray for my Higher Power to give me the willingness to let the diseased thinking go.  When I ask for relief when that diseased thinking strikes, I find I receive it very quickly.  I don't know that I'll ever reach a point where I won't have the diseased thinking.  Thankfully I do have tools to help me reduce the impact those thoughts have on my life.  So for today I'll aim for progress, not perfection, and hope for the best!

Why Sponsoring Yourself Fails and Facing Relapse

After a span of 15 months of solid abstinence, I slipped.  I have plenty of excuses for why it happened.  I was exhausted.  I was distracted.  But the fact remains that my 2-year-old son left part of a cookie on the floor.  I was cleaning up the assortment of cheerios, pretzels, fruit snacks, grapes, and other detritus he'd dropped on the floor that afternoon when I picked up a piece of cookie and popped it in my mouth. 

Had it stopped there, I may have salvaged my abstinence.  But once the cookie piece was in my mouth the curious insanity set in.  "It's already in my mouth, I might as well eat it."  We all have moments where we pop a food item in our mouth unthinking.  When this has happened to me in the past, I have spit out the food item and told my sponsor about it.  Well this time I was between sponsors - meaning I was my own sponsor.  I'll give you a hint - sponsoring yourself doesn't work.  Because you see, as my own sponsor, I told myself, "It's already in your mouth, you might as well eat it."

It was a slippery slide from there.  I bought my boyfriend a box of doughnuts.  My son took one and was done with it.  Well I wrapped it in a napkin and threw it away.  In a weak moment, I figured out that I had enough calories left in my daily budget to eat that doughnut.  Since it had been carefully wrapped before finding its way into the trash can, I figured it was fair game to eat.  Never mind that my baseline abstinence is no flour, no sugar, no compulsive eating behaviors (i.e., eating off the floor and pulling items out of the trash can).  I counted that as an abstinent treat because I budgeted for it in my calories.  I hadn't felt triggered by the cookie, and that doughnut hadn't set me off on a binge, so clearly I could handle flour and sugar again.  But to be safe I wouldn't eat any breads or salty treats - that might not go over as well.  I was the man who believed it safe to drink whiskey with his milk from the Big Book.

The next thing I knew, a few days later I went to the store and purchased six more doughnuts.  I budgeted them into my calories but wound up eating them all in one day.  So instead of a calorie cap for a day, I started using my calorie cap for the week.  I ate all six doughnuts, but now I was struggling to find a way to control my calories for the week.  Well then I started to look at my "average calories on plan" - this is something in my calorie counting application that tells me how many calories I typically am over or under budget per day over the span of my tracking period.  Now I figured as long as I averaged out being under calories I'd be fine.  So I bought and ate a dozen doughnuts over the course of two days.

When I got on the scale I discovered that in three weeks I had managed to gain eight pounds by steadily eating up the calorie deficits that I'd spent three months accumulating.  It was time to face the music.  I knew that my abstinence had been broken and I was in relapse.  So I did what any compulsive eater would do.  I went to the grocery store, picked up about $50 worth of binge foods, and took them home.  My son sat with me as I ate two Twinkies, a Hostess cupcake, a store made chocolate chip cookie, and about 9 Oreos.  (While eating I discovered they no longer tasted that good, much to my disappointment.)

It was then my son's bed time.  I got up to give him a bath and discovered I felt buzzed.  Being an alcoholic, I used to laugh when people described getting a buzz from food, but I honestly felt like I'd been drinking a bottle or two of wine.  I had a strong buzz.  I got sober when I got abstinent, so the two had always overlapped.  Now I knew that I was feeling that sugar high people spoke about.  I was high and I hated the feeling.  I gave my son a bath feeling completely numbed out and disconnected.  It was like life had lost its color, and I didn't want any more of that feeling.  I spent so many days wishing for sweet oblivion while I went through the pain of writing my fourth step, and here I was with that sweet oblivion and I discovered there was nothing sweet about it.

So I put my son in bed and proceeded to throw out the rest of the binge foods.  I then picked up the phone and asked someone to be my sponsor. 

When I first came into program I was suicidal and so desperate for help that handing my life over to the care of my sponsor was an incredible relief.  This time I wasn't holding the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I was living my life working the steps.  I was doing daily 10th steps.  I was praying and meditating.  I was saying the serenity prayer when things got difficult. What I wasn't doing was being honest with myself.  As soon as that honest appraisal happened, I did the most amazing thing:  I picked up the phone and used my tools.  I surrendered without the feeling that the world was crushing me.  For this gift of willingness I can only thank my Higher Power, because with my pride there is no doubt in my mind that I didn't surrender on my own.  I heard in meeting tonight that when we stop listening to God's whispers, he starts throwing bricks.  God had to throw skyscrapers before I came into the rooms and got abstinent.  Yet somehow I listened to the whisper over the roar of the food.

One of the horror stories we "grow up with" in program is the story of the person in relapse.  When you go out, you never know how long it's going to take you to come back in.  The fear of relapse is what kept me from acknowledging it for so long, because I had a fear-driven belief that relapse meant that I would gain all my weight back and more.  I'm down 135 pounds from my top weight.  That is a long road of pain and heart ache that I saw stretched before me.

Those stories gave me the idea that relapse was a creature with a mind of its own.  I would be hijacked by my disease, helpless to stop the weight gain.  I'd lose everything I'd gained in program, and gain everything I'd lost whether I wanted to or not!  And yet I have four days of abstinence.  The food speaks to me, but when the food talks to me, I talk to my sponsor.  I make outreach calls.  I do readings.  I go to meetings.  I am doing all those things I did before relapse when the food got loud.  And I am ending each day abstinent.  I will admit that I want to go back for more doughnuts.  That's fine to say and fine to feel.  But I don't have to act on those feelings and thoughts.  As long as I let myself be guided by my Higher Power working through my sponsor, I can choose abstinence.

Today's For Today Workbook posed the question:  "When has believing in the possibility of being abstinent enabled me to stay the course to better times?"  The answer is: today!  When I first got abstinent my sponsor told me that I didn't have to worry about tomorrow or next week or next year.  All I had to worry about is today.  For today, I can do anything.  So when the craving for that doughnut hit me, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and whispered to myself: "Not today.  Maybe tomorrow, but not today."  It was the mantra I used before relapse, and it worked just as well today as it did then.  The anxiety, the panic, the craving settled down.  Because I don't have to worry about tomorrow.  I believe I can follow my meal plan today.  I can't tell you about tomorrow or next week or next year, but for today, I can be abstinent.

A friend of mine with over twenty years of abstinence once told me that he really only has one day: today.  And for today, I've discovered that I can believe in abstinence.  I don't have to surrender to relapse.  I'm a compulsive overeater.  I am powerless over food and my life is unmanageable.  It is the first step, and it's just as true day one abstinent as it is day 500 or 5,000.  I can't. God can.  I think I'll let God.